Trump’s moral calculator

Donald Trump said Wednesday that Hillary Clinton “has to go to jail” because the scandal over her email server, comments that mark a major departure from the American political tradition.

And the outrageousness of it is all the more so given the multiple crimes he is alleged to have committed.

At a morning rally in Ocala, Trump said that he was “embarrassed” Congress had not done more to probe Clinton after the FBI decided not to seek charges against her over the private email server she used as secretary of state.

“Do they make deals like this?” Trump asked.

“This is the most heinous, the most serious thing that I’ve ever seen involving justice in the United States — in the history of the United States.”

“We have a person that has committed crimes that is now running for the presidency.”

The most heinous, the most serious thing that he’s ever seen involving justice in the United States – not slavery, not the genocide of Native Americans, not the internment of Japanese-Americans during WW2, not the Tuskegee experiment, not the many right-wing coups fostered by the CIA during the cold war…but a former Secretary of State’s use of a private email server.

What a moral pygmy he is.

Later on, after moving on to Lakeland, Florida, Trump again renewed his vow to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton if he is elected.

Clinton “has to go to jail,” Trump warned, adding that the lawyers working for her over the email issue should also be incarcerated.

And her dentist! And her best friend from third grade! And Sidney Blumenthal! And everyone she’s ever known!

It’s been noted pretty much anyone can get into a bit of a bubble, just by picking their sources and their company. This guy, of course, pretty much lives off tabloid TV, the alt-right web, and Twitter, and has hired Breitbart’s chief fantasist to stand right next to him, reinforcing every wild fever dream. And is invested in winning this thing so deeply it makes someone sucked into a predatory cult to the tune of five figures probably relatively closer to escaping… Trump’s no more likely to walk back his increasingly incoherent extremism than Miscavige is to admit–even to himself–that Hubbard made the whole thing up, possibly assisted by chemicals…

And you can still find in that bubble headlines (and you can bet those are the ones he’s reading) about how he’s on the brink of winning… and never mind the bookies barely giving him two figures of odds. And never mind even _before_ his latest scandal, the popular vote that gave him hope and the merely sane nightmares didn’t really tell the whole story, and he _barely_ had a feasible path to victory in the electoral college even then…

Dunno if you watched that whole debate, but ‘disaster’ was frequently on his lips. While, amusingly enough, outside his bubble, that’s mostly what anyone paying much attention was calling his campaign. I figure, tho’, that’s kinda one of his tells. This weird reflection habit. Some variety of rubber/glue, and never mind he’s technically out of primary school some decades (emotionally, not so much). They call me a disaster? Nooooo… That’s them!

What’s both sad and dangerous is: he’s sucking so many along with him, just like any cult leader. The whole of the world can tell them, listen, you just don’t have the votes, you aren’t gonna _get_ the votes, and by the way, you’re completely clueless about due process, and they’ll still believe until the end and beyond that if he lost, it was a fix, and if the courts tell him to screw off, they’re all in on it against him…

It’s dangerous when it’s anyone, that cranked up, that . And his people, of course, have already heard a lot of loose talk about ‘second amendment solutions’…

I’d write a proper kiss-off directly to him, here, tell him how little sympathy I have for _most_ of the idiots talk themselves into these wild, hallucinatory, destructive fantasies, but, hell, empty gesture, I guess. And just can’t ever imagine him having the self-reflection to climb down from this lunacy regardless of _who_ tells him…

But I’ll say this much: I think he bears moral responsibility for the violence this _will_ inspire (hell, _has_ inspired). I could froth like him about how he _should_ answer to the law for that, but this is the thing: I know I can’t, I know he won’t, I know it just doesn’t work like that. So no point in fantasising, or giving blustering speeches…

So I’ll stick to: this is on him, the blithering, dishonest, self-absorbed ass. And it’s such a pity he lacks the capacity for shame.

Not to mention the fact that Trump himself has benefited from such ‘deals’, that in fact huge numbers of Amercians every year benefit from such ‘deals’. Quite aside from the times Trump has avoided prosecution or even investigation by making illegal contributions to prosecutors. [cough, Florida, Trump University, cough]

James – if Trump got in, sooner or later your name would come up. And Ophelia’s and mine and …

… oh, and the bit I missed (I remember where I was going, now, with mentioning the cult-like dimensions…)

It’s always hard to know how much figures like this are conscious how dishonest they are. I think the real danger of living a big enough lie and repeating it enough is you at least get confused, by the end, where, exactly, you left reality, which bits you built yourself…

It’s moot, I guess. The lie may take decades to build, but it’s still a lie. Point is, it’s hard for me to know, I guess, how much he’s conscious, now, of what he’s doing…

But what I think is clear: I think what he’s doing with this stuff isn’t aimed even at winning anymore. I think he likes the adulation of his enraged crowds, and he feeds on it, like any cult leader. Maybe he’s thinking toward this media empire rumours are he’s angling toward post-election, maybe it’s shorter term, less considered, basking in no way reflectively in the rage he’s building around him…

But it’s a shit move, either way. And critically: if you wonder why he won’t talk about accepting the results, you wonder why he goes on and on about a ‘fix’, this is why: that’s central to what he’s building. He may or may not believe it himself by now, but this is moot. He’ll never admit it. And will live the rest of his life, saying it anyway, and believing it ever more, year by year.